Because the thing was: that was ayes, from anyone else.
But oh, it was somethingverydifferent from him. Very different, and very not understandable to someone as sincere and decent as Henry Samuel Beckett.Beck, that is him saying it would be sensible to agree but he’s not going to, she typed back, once she’d fully composed herself.It’s him mocking the contract. Or saying he doesn’t care about it. He’s being a sarcastic ass.
And she could practically see Beck’s answering expression behind her eyes, once she’d sent it. The living embodiment of the wordgolly. The very essence ofgoodness me. Those big eyes of his suddenly even more enormous, his mouth beneath his mustache anOof scandalized bafflement.
Though it still made her laugh with near surprised delight when he actually replied with the shocked-faceemoji. Then three little dots, and a stop. Then three little dots, and a stop. And finally some words:
Oh no I’m so sorry Daisy. You must come home immediately, I’ll sort everything, we’ll talk to him, don’t worry, I will get you out of this terribly harrowing situation I have buffoonishly put you in.
Because that was the thing about Beck:
He was a good man. Very good. Too good, really, considering her reaction to his scrambled apologies. She saw him take the blame for something he hadn’t done, and immediately wanted to hug him through the iMessage app. And then just tell him everything was going to be okay, honestly.
She even found herself typing it.
Like he’d knocked her solving-other-people’s-issues funny bone. And her hand simply kicked up and onto the keyboard of her phone.Hey no, I’ve been in worse situations. Way worse. One time I had to discreetly get a famous British actor out of a hotel room with his knob still stuck in a bathroom tap, she wrote. Then after a moment of tense negotiation with herself, she finished the thought.So this is basically child’s play. I’ll get him to come around.
Even though she didn’t know if she really believed it.
Caleb Miller never wanted to come around about anything. Hell, he was a whole romance writer now, inexplicably, yet somehow had never even come around to the idea of anyone living happily ever after. He’d just obviously been able to pretend to feel the things he had put in his admittedly good books in order to phonily recreate them in a convincing way, until finally he’d gotten sick of even that much.
Because it wasn’t just the stuff he’d said onThe View.
It was the stilted book before that—Everything Is Not Completely Fine.
The one she flicked to, and read over the beginning of, as she tried to figure out what to say to Beck. Just to remind herself of who he was, or who he had become now that even pretending to understand love had fallen away.
He stood on the bluff, looking out at the raging ocean, she read.
The cold, raging ocean. Like the one inside himself, that he knew now he could never conquer. If he had stayed with Rose it would have drowned her, that much was certain. He was not fit to love someone like her, or be loved by her. His happy ending was in being at peace with that. Or whatever kind of peace he could manage.
He pictured an island in the middle of this expanse of rough water.
A house there, lonely as a lost bird, weather-beaten but still standing.
Not much inside, of course. Spare and simple. But it was enough for a man like him. It would keep him safe. It would keep Rose safe. And she would go on to find the man she deserved, warm and passionate and good.
Maybe, he reasoned, after a time he would get himself a dog.
Then he started toward the nearest boat rental company.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
There was also the god-awful epilogue that suggestedmaybe thingsweren’tfine at all. Maybe the ornery asshole doesn’t get the girl at the end. Maybe he doesn’t even deserve to. Maybe he should live in a survivalist compound with seventeen werewolves guarding the gates.
If you’re sure, Beck typed.
I’m sure, Daisy replied.
Three
She knew she wasn’t going to be able to come at him the same way twice. He was just too practical a person, and would undoubtedly have plans to prevent another attempt at intruding on his life. Structures to better keep her out. Obstacles to prevent further fence climbing. Silent alarms rigged to her exact body temperature, in order to fire shotguns into her face if she came within a ten-mile radius.
And that meant thinking of another way.
Something that would catch him unawares.
Like waiting in an alleyway across from his favorite and monumentally dull-looking diner with a pair of binoculars in her hands. Then darting in that direction the moment she saw him push through the double doors, paper rolled up under his arm, same uniform on as the day before,stay away from meexpression already on his tomb-like face.
